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Although the chemistry was wrong, Linus Pauling's triple-stranded DNA model was a catalyst for James Watson and Francis Crick to solve the structure of DNA.
(DNAi Location: Code > Finding the Structure>pieces of the puzzle>Pauling's triple helix)

Transcript:

This is Linus Pauling's failed attempt to predict the structure of DNA. The problem with his triple helix model is that the phosphates form the helical core, with the bases pointing outwards. This would be impossible under normal cellular conditions. Each phosphate group is negatively charged, and so many negative charges forced together would repel each other, literally driving the structure apart.

In 1952, Peter Pauling was a student at Cambridge when his father, Linus, sent him a paper proposing that DNA was a triple helix. James (Jim) Watson eagerly read the paper and realized that Pauling got it wrong.